Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Stephanie Frig Fall 2016

Among
emerging designers in Australia, Stephanie Frig is perhaps among the
most fascinating of the last year and a half. A recent graduate of the
fashion design program at the University of Technology in Sydney, her
graduate collection, was in Frig’s own words, “excessive, adorned and
synthetic”. Inspired by fabulous older women (think of figures like Lyn
Dell, Linda Rodin and Iris Apfel) like those of Advanced Style, her
ambition was to create a collection comprised exclusively from handmade
textiles. The rather risky and time-consuming gamble has paid off, big
time, with the unusual shapes and silhouettes informed by traditional
techniques. Presented at the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival
in 2016 her collection gave me goosebumps- it’s precisely why I love
fashion and am so intrigued by it. The colour, the texture, all of it
swamped the female form and obscured it with tiny laser cut panels
giving the clothes another dimension.

With
a tailor for a grandfather, and fond memories of her mother sewing
throughout childhood it comes as no surprise Stephanie now finds herself
in the fashion industry. Citing the aesthetic of the 60s and 80s, in
particular iconic films which ruled those decades including, interior
design and of course fashion there’s a certain interplay of colour and
silhouettes without a waist that dominate Frig’s work. Fall 2016 was
inspired by the excessive nature of films by Spanish filmmaker Pedro
Almodóvar and the fading glamor represented by women dressing in their
Sunday Best. Texture, colour saturation and decadence, these are all
ideals movies uphold and as a general rule of thumb, the older the
better. With Frig describing the process of her drawings as those which
‘tend to be large blobs of dried up acrylic paint with a smudge of oil
pastel’, if her clothes were anything else, they’d be a children’s
playground. More specifically the kind you’d find at McDonald’s. Just as
you think you know what’s around the corner, there’s something else to
explore, wrap your head around and ultimately enjoy.